Photo of the day No. 18 - The Hong Kong Island Skyline
The Hong Kong Island Skyline has changed in 2025
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Photo of the day No. 18 - The Hong Kong Island Skyline
The Hong Kong Island Skyline has changed in 2025
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“The Hong Kong Island Skyline is regarded as being amongst the finest skylines in the world. Situated on the north shore of Hong Kong Island Island the view from Kowloon next to the Star Ferry looking across Victoria Harbour is simply incredible”
The image above is an image which I took in January 2025 it is the world famous Hong Kong Island Skyline which has changed very slowly in the past 25 years or so and is not likely to change much over the next 25 years or so (I hope).
There has been one significant change since I last took an image of this skyline and was pointed out to me by my great friend Bill of Streets of Hong Kong Private Walking tours, he is a proper photographer (unlike me, I am simply an enthusiastic amateur!) and I had not really noticed the change which is quite profound although the absence of any comments in the press is just a tad odd.
The Bank of China Building which opened in 1990 and was designed by I. M. Pei is a world famous building, 70 floors, in the Central Business District in Hong Kong, in the image above it is the huge triangular shaped building with a criss cross design and what I call “rugby posts” at the top, it is certainly iconic and has featured in many Hollywood Movies (in Star Trek : Voyager it was shown quite prominently as Starfleet Communications Research Center)
In front of it was Hutchison House, a rather plain and nondescript building of 22 floors and famous for the Bull and Bear Pub, (my sister worked there for some time and married into Hong Kong Royalty so to speak after meeting him in the pub!) well that building has gone, the owner of the building Cheung Kong Holdings and one of it’s subsidiaries Hutchison Whampoa decided to build a second building based on Cheung Kong Centre (which is located next to the Bank of China building) if you will a mini me building, not as tall but basically exactly the same and named Cheung Kong Centre II.
Well the building is now finished and guess what, it essentially blocks any views of the tenants of the Bank of China Tower unless they are at the top and when viewed from Kowloon, most of the Bank of China is now invisible to the naked eye and you can really see this at night time, the Bank of China Tower has zig zag lighting and now you can hardly see them unless you are at the correct angle
In Hong Kong at night, 8pm sharp we have a light show called the Symphony of Lights and the centrepiece of the show was the Bank of China Tower with it’s moving zig zag white lights, with the completion of Cheung Kong Centre II the effect is somewhat diminished and not quite the same.
Oh well and my final point, it would not surprise me if both the Cheung Kong Centre buildings were designed in such a way as to mitigate the bad “Feng Shui” of the Bank of China Tower which is believed to be bad luck, the ultimate owner of both buildings is Li Ka Shing, Hong Kong’s richest man with a net worth north of US$38 Billion (with a B) and I am guessing he takes luck | bad luck very seriously, as do his sons.
This is pretty much the same image from 2021, the Bank of China Tower is a lot more prominent and you can see most of it, Hutchison House at 22 floors is the small white building to the left.
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click on the image to enlarge
This is one of my favourite images from the late 1950’s the skyline has changed dramatically since then
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This is another great picture from 1974 (we arrived in Hong Kong in January 1972)
So there you go, the slowly evolving Hong Kong Island Skyline, personally I cannot see it changing too much unless some property developer wants to make a statement and build a skyscraper of 150 floors, it is doubtful that the Government would approve that but it cannot be ruled out.
The amazing panoramic city view from the Lugard Road Lookout at Victoria Peak
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